Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Well, I've now officially finished my first full Olympic distance tri! And the 1.5k swim wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting. Again the conditions were great for this race. It got very hot for the rest of the weekend but luckily our race was pretty early so we missed most of the heat. Completely by chance, my mom had booked a hotel within 100m of the transition zone, which made for a stress-free race morning.

Luckily this wasn't Lake Ontario we were jumping into without a warmup!!

Swim
This was the most unique swim portion I've done. We were taken out to the start of the swim by boat, jumped off the boat and swam to the start buoys. The start signal was even the boat's horn! (may have missed that...) Once I started I was able to get a draft right away, and the swimmer ahead was just fast enough that it was comfortably uncomfortable to stay behind her. We may have been going off course a bit, but that was nothing compared to how much it happened at Woodstock! I focused on kicking as little as possible and sighting only when I really needed to, and got out of the water feeling like I'd done a good workout but my legs feeling fresh.

I don't think the elite guys were thrilled with the swim cap colour choice this time...

Bike
The bike was a nice combination of rolling hills and false flats (that I swear were going downhill both ways! It was great!) I maintained a good effort throughout, keeping my cadence high, and was happy to see that my speed was significantly faster than my other races this season even though I came off the bike still feeling fresh (ish) for the run.

Run
The first half of the run felt great! The course was rolling hills but I was feeling good so they weren't overly tough. I'm not sure if it was the weather starting to heat up or the longer race distance, but I hit a wall at 5k and painfully slogged my way back over the same rolling course (which was suddenly REALLY hard) to finish in just under 2 hours 22 mins.

Overall I'm very happy with how my racing has been coming along this season, and there is still plenty to work on to keep me motivated. The swim, bike, and first half of the run felt strong and I look forward to what more experience at this distance will do.